WBA preview

Apologies for the lateness of this preview, but I am off to Doha in the morning, and when I get back I leave for the South Pole, and I am not back until end of Jan!
So I have been a bit busy packing. Apologies also for the fact that this is copy pasted from Tomkins Times and not written by myself.

Confidence in the Red camp should be quite high following Liverpool’s progression to the quarter-finals of the League Cup on Wednesday night, with two goals from Luis Suarez giving us victory. Next up for Kenny Dalglish’s men is the trip to the Hawthorns to face Roy Hodgson’s side in the Premier League. With Albion being knocked out at the 3rd round stage of the Carling Cup, the Baggies will have had a full week to prepare for this fixture.

The corresponding fixture last season saw Liverpool suffer a 2-1 defeat at the Hawthorns. Prior to that loss we had recorded 12 consecutive victories (home and away) over the Baggies – nine in the PL, three in the old First Division – and had not tasted defeat in 19 league games (home and away) against the West Midlands outfit. The last occasion we lost at West Brom (2-0) in the league was during the 1980/81 campaign and we ended up drawing the same fixture the following season 1-1. Let’s hope history does not repeat itself on Saturday evening (5.30pm kick off).

Liverpool have made an inconsistent start to the campaign with the number 2 seemingly a dominant number for Kenny Dalglish’s men. After drawing our first game against Sunderland on the opening day, we then had two victories against Arsenal (2-0) and Bolton (3-1), followed by two defeats at Stoke (1-0) and Tottenham (4-0), then two more victories, over Wolves (2-1) and Everton (2-0), before drawing our next two games against Man Utd (1-1) and Norwich (1-1). If that sequence continues then we should either win or lose against West Brom…

The Baggies made a poor start to the campaign, winning just one of their opening seven fixtures – one win, two draws and four defeats – but have since recorded two consecutive victories over their neighbours, Wolves (2-0) at home and Aston Villa (2-1) away.

Liverpool had a clean bill of health heading the League Cup tie with Stoke on Wednesday night.

West Brom’s only confirmed absentee is Irish international forward Shane Long who is sidelined until December with a knee injury, while there are minor doubts over Graham Dorrans (knee) and Paul Scharner (knee).